Quebec creatives team up to foster a Canadian art-furniture movement

At Montreal’s Éditions 8888, founder Jean-Michel Gadoua teams up with his fellow Quebec creatives to collaborate on a variety of design items including furniture, objets, music and clothing. He says that his goal is to foster a Canadian art-furniture movement that looks beyond one singular discipline. “I want to establish a creative cell where we will eventually create a language of our own,” he says. “I contact artists who share a similar vision, but my choices are mostly driven by the aesthetic qualities of their work. I also need to feel a connection with them.”

After working as a buyer and creative director at a furnishings showroom in Montreal, Gadoua wanted to devote time to exploring his vision. “I was always drawn toward more experimental, sculptural furniture and decided to start working on my own brand to have an outlet for my wilder creative side,” he says. With a name that references the radical Italian postmodernist Gruppo 9999 and Le Son 666, a small record label Gadoua ran in the early 2000s, Éditions 8888 launched in 2020 beginning with an exhibition called Wet Metal. An ecommerce boutique followed in June, 2021.

Inspired by references that range from Japanese fashion designer Rei Kawakubo to the industrial music group Skinny Puppy, Gadoua sums up the style of his offerings with the term “brutaluxe,” which represents the desire to celebrate and elevate raw materials and spontaneous gestures. It’s an aesthetic he also explores on his website, which Gadoua modelled after a zine.

Éditions 8888, boutique8888.com

Black metal console, $3,666.